Sailing to Byzantium is a poem in four sections. Immediately this suggests to me the four seasons, particularly given Yeats' motif of cycles, passing time, mortality and the "gyre". The opening demonstrative "That is no country for old men" foreshadows what Yeats reveals in line 15, that he has "sailed the seas and come/to the holy city of Byzantium". QED, the journey of the title is already completed; it is a voyage written in the present perfect (this seems trivial, but will almost subconsciously resonate with the closing lines). Moving back, the first stanza is a catalogue of life, of what is "begotten, born, and dies". The magnificently paradoxical "dying generations" are along the thematic lines of the cyclical, death paired alongside generation. The middle lines of the stanza, "The salmon falls, the mackerel crowded seas,/Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long/Whatever is begotten, born, and dies", because there are full of stresses, read as busy, nearly chaotic: an echo of hectic, generative life. The rhythm in the last line of the stanza is much more restrained, to correspond with the idea of a detached "timeless, unageing intellect". We can summarize the meaning of the first stanza: The speaker of the poem, presumably an old man, finds himself irrelevant because of his age and inferred impotence; yet he recognizes something more lasting than those involved in the natural cycles of life, which is ignored by the "dying generations".
The second stanza makes clear the speaker's identity more clear. The first two lines seem to state inarguably that the speaker is an "aged man", and feels a certain impotence. However he has found a certain alternative: he is "but a paltry thing" unless "Soul clap its hands and sing", and "louder sing/for every tatter in its mortal dress". The more aged and decrepit the body, the stronger the "singing" should be. What this singing refers to is ambiguous at this point. However, as this is a poem and many poems are self referential, there is the definite possibility that "singing" could refer to writing poetry (this really is not even coded; singing and reciting poetry have an ancient connection beginning in classical poetics, and antiquity is on the line from the title; writing poetry must therefore be considered as a compelling extraction of singing). The next line almost seems like a lapse, a misplay by Yeat: 'Nor is there singing school but studying'. The singing school has no connection to the other elements of the poem, and feels forced by the meaning that is being conveyed by the next line, that singing is only learned via reflection on "Monuments of its own magnificence". The mellifluous alliteration is in line with the musicality of the singing metaphor and points further in the self referential direction. The last lines are the clearest in the stanza, and from them we can fix an almost certain interpretation: The speaker is returning to the Classical, to get in touch with the ageless eternally rejuvenating (Platonic and possibly, if the idea of singing as poetry has already convinced, Homeric) realms of antiquity. Note that this stanza must function on a metaphorical level, that the literal is simply nonsense: That monuments could teach singing, which would revitalize the soul, and that those monuments are located in Byzantium (Constantinople, Instabul).
The third stanza opens with the thrilling image of "sages standing in God's holy fire", a demonstration of the men's tenacity and a possible reference to the phoenix, which regenerates from the ash's of a fire and so is immortal. The line also seems to be a quasi classical invocation, as to a muse, suggesting that antiquity has already begun to influence the speaker. "As in a gold mosaic of a wall" is a knotty line, which we may not want to pin down. "Wall" suggests stability and lasting qualities (but maybe also ruins), while the metaphor could be read as correlating the sages to individual tiles and "God's holy fire" as the whole "gold mosaic", suggesting that meaning and power is granted by connection with a greater force or design. Then, Yeats would himself become part of this operation, would become an element within the "gyre" or another tile within the mosaic. The final four lines are simple by comparison: the speaker wants his human characteristics, his "heart" and his body ("dying animal") to be transformed and so by made immortal. "Artifice of eternity", like the mosaic, or singing, clearly seems to mean that immortality is crafted by creative acts; again, my tendency is to interpret this most immediately as poetry in general and this poem specifically.
The final stanza is rather fanciful, but also really clever. Here the speaker seems to have escaped the perils of aging, the "no country for old men", in fact the natural world entirely. Maybe that is a little exuberant, perhaps he has only yearned for this transformation: "Once out of nature I shall never take/My bodily form from any natural thing". Also, notice that the monuments of magnificence have shrunk to fine metalwork, and then baubles. Yeats suggests that the fountain of youth outlined in the poem may have its drawbacks. Many of the allusions crystallize here; the scene created is undoubtedly an ancient one (one that seems to be confabulated from different epochs, the Greek and Roman); singing is reinforced by the closing image of a golden bird "set upon a golden bough to sing". Perhaps the singing has become literally true? At a shallow level, yes, but the profitable association of singing with poetry yields a deeper interpretation. In the line "a form as Grecian goldsmiths make/Of hammered gold and gold ennameling" the artisanal aspect of the artifice seems like a match for Yeats "flexible (tensile, malleable) yet firm" poetics. And the closing line seems to perfectly capture the tradeoffs a natural life, i.e. one spent in the moment, and one spent writing (that is, the writing can never exist in the present moment, but only reflect "what is past, or passing, or to come") and also to be an avowal of the poetry that follows (that is, it is a suitable opening poem for the volume).
There is a mix of Christian, Greek, and Roman reference in the poem. Does this suggest a connection between the three, or does Yeats mean that all great works of art rooted in any school of thought can last?
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